Carbon Materials for improved stability of anodes for Li-ion batteries

In view of the global challenges related to green house gas (GHG) emissions and energy supply, electrochemical energy conversion technologies, like capacitors, fuel cells and batteries are becoming increasingly important in the energy system, both for sto rage of energy from renewable sources, for portable applications and last but not least, in the transportation sector. For all these components, some form of carbon is generally used as an electrode material, representing a large potential market for the right carbon products. Recently, various forms of carbon nano materials have been widely studied for these applications, due to their unique properties and the potential for tailoring of these materials. Next generation vehicles will most likely either be plug-in hybrid vehicles or all-electric vehicles, and Li-ion battery technology is considered the most promising. Although these batteries have been commercially available for small scale applications for some time, upscaling of batteries with reasonable cyclability, energy and power density, without compromising the safety aspects, has turned out challenging. In general, challenges related to costs, energy and power density, abuse tolerance, and cycle life must be overcome before a widespread introducti on to the market is expected. The focus of this project will be to investigate relationship between the structure of nanocarbons (morphology and surface defects) and surface chemistry and cycling stability, as well as the thermal stability of anodes. This knowledge will be utilized for demonstration of a small cell with improved stability. Industrial partners in the project are Elkem Carbon AS, and Carbontech, who possesses technology for various routes for fabrication of carbon materials, and Miljø Innov asjon, planning to initiate Li-ion battery production in Norway.